Reading a recent review of How to Be Antiracist and White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. It’s from a religiously themed magazine and notes that “many have compared antiracism to religion” and that this has a literal, non-analogic, meaning.
Today is Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. The article says antiracism includes “liturgies of purgation, and promises of redemption.” Psychologically, I think almost everyone wants forgiveness for something. Catholics have confession.
“Americans could be forgiven for confusing antiracism with racism itself,” the article I’m reading says. Well, not racism but racialism. Race and genes matter; that’s racialism. One race is better than the other; that’s racism. My personal experiences may have made me biased in this regard, but I think our bodies are hard-wired to act a certain way. It doesn’t mean we don’t still have brains and free will, but it does matter.